Sermons

A few years ago the New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast published a graphic memoir about her never-ending and unsuccessful attempts to get her aging parents to focus on end-of-life issues.  The title of the book is, Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? This morning, I’m afraid I’m going to ask you to focus for 15 minutes or so on death – but not so much as an “end-of-life” issue as a challenge for Christians, taking off from our readings this week.

Sometime in 2011 I came across an article in the Washington Post about a Palestinian American named Nasser Abufarha that set my life in a new direction. The article reported that one day in 2003 Nasser, as a doctoral candidate at the U of Wisconsin, was drinking a cup of coffee at Starbucks when he noticed the Fair Trade label on his cup. He thought to himself, “I should be able to go back to my village in the West Bank (Palestine) and organize the impoverished olive farmers, into cooperatives, offer them an above-market fair trade price for their olives, teach them organic farming practices, and sell their olive oil as fair trade and organic to outlets in Europe and the United States.”

The Call Changes.  What’s next.   I spoke about discovering CALL during turbulent times in race torn. Memphis in the late 60’s–crossing over and creating music with “forbidden” children in hidden places. In college I became a part of a touring reader’s theater group WORDMASTERS which performed moral/political work interpreting great literature- to help untangle Vietnam War, Sexuality, and civil right’s struggles for young people.  As a theater major I experienced the Word becoming Flesh in these performances.  I discussed the role of the director Edwina Snyder in helping me find “Call” by letting go of dysfunctional attachments and opening my hand to spiritual gifts that would pull me forward into the world of healing through Art. Seeker’s became a part of my forward movement- Sonya Dyer and Marjory Bankson gave me encouragement to pursue my growing edge which brought me to Bokamoso and Maryann Carpenter.  I found freedom in this call which drew on everything I loved, and helped me see that the gifts I brought to the table were not mine- but were blessings I received by saying “yes” to call.